We stayed at Hotel Nungwi (the name isn’t complete, because its owners are Russian and I don’t want to advertise them). It’s a small hotel with, if I counted correctly, 12 rooms. We stayed in standard room 12, opposite the hotel restaurant. The hotel is run by a Russian family, Dasha and Maksym. Very welcoming, they always tried to help with any questions about the hotel and more — but first things first.
Check-in was quick, as we arrived at the hotel around 16:00–17:00. The hotel owners met us and brought us a welcome drink in the form of a small coconut. They told us where things were, showed us the room and let us go and rest. Check-out is at 11:00; you can leave your things at reception and use the shared toilet and shower.
The room. A standard room on the ground floor with a small terrace for relaxing and evening get-togethers. On the terrace: a small table, 1 chair and a clothes drying rack. The room is spacious, with room to move around and unpack despite the huge bed; there’s something like an open wardrobe made of wood and ropes, a table, a chair, air conditioning and a ceiling fan. In the bathroom: a sink, 1 glass, a water heater, a toilet and a shower with a curtain; next to the shower there’s a dispenser, I understand with shower gel, but I think it had already gone off, so we bought soap in a shop — and we always bring our own shampoo anyway… The windows at the top have no glass, just mosquito nets. And that’s actually good, because the water that didn’t fully drain into the shower’s floor drain dried quickly. Compared with standard rooms, the deluxe rooms reportedly also have a fridge, a safe and a kettle with a tea/coffee set. A small fridge to keep a couple of bottles of water in is really missing from the standard room. Soundproofing is so-so, but the walls aren’t cardboard like in some hotels. In the morning you can hear the calls to prayer, but not as loudly as someone wrote in the reviews. There’s a little noise from children, since there’s a school next door.
The internet. The internet is there, and yet it isn’t. Just like the gopher you can’t see but that’s there. But the hotel owners warned us straight away: if you only use messengers, it’s OK; if you need more, better buy a SIM card with 4G.
Breakfasts. Breakfasts at Hotel Nungwi are European and huge. Honestly, I don’t remember any hotels in other countries where, with breakfasts not served as a buffet, I stuffed myself and couldn’t finish everything they gave me.
For breakfast they served: fresh mango juice; tea or coffee (if there are 2 or more of you, you can choose both tea and coffee) — the tea comes in a teapot, and the coffee was instant, in a jar, with a pot of boiling water (the coffee ☕️ is tasty). A plate of fruit: pineapple, watermelon, mango, and a 4th that alternated between banana and passion fruit. And the main dish: fried eggs or an omelette with vegetables; sausages, or doughnuts, or pancakes with banana, or shawarma, or triangles of thin lavash; toast with butter, or tomatoes, or a small salad. All of this can vary. The taste: the mango was overripe for my liking throughout the whole holiday, and the watermelons weren’t always sweet. The passion fruit was so sour it set my teeth on edge. The banana and pineapple were tasty. The fried eggs were ordinary; the vegetable omelette was tasteless. The pancakes and doughnuts were tasty and sweet, but very filling. The sausages were ordinary, but compared with Turkish or Egyptian ones they’re very tasty sausages. The coffee, although instant, I liked — it’s not comparable with our instant coffee: not very bitter, not sour, pleasant. The tea tasted like ordinary black tea.
The hotel restaurant at Hotel Nungwi. During our stay we ordered a plate of slipper lobsters for 50,000 shillings and tuna sashimi for 70,000 shillings. The lobsters weren’t fully cleaned, or there was some bitter dark film. The taste reminded me of Thai crabs. In another restaurant on the coast and on the Safari Blue excursion they also served slipper lobsters, and I liked them more there, but they just weren’t for me (in terms of overall taste). On the Prison Island excursion they served ordinary lobsters, which I liked much more. But the tuna sashimi, prepared by the hotel owner Maksym himself, we really liked. Very tasty, very fresh — such fresh, tender tuna that simply melts on your tongue was a first for me in all my travels. In short, I definitely recommend the tuna sashimi! Presentation: the lobsters were served with a choice of rice or French fries, a small salad and lime. The sashimi was served with rice, wasabi and ginger. The portions, by our standards, are designed for 2 people and are very filling. We finished the sashimi but didn’t even try the rice. Cola costs 2,000 shillings, beer 5,000 shillings. Hotel guests get a 10% discount on all dishes except drinks.
The grounds. Score for the grounds: 4. The grounds are small but very green; sometimes you even have to walk around the plants to get to your room. There’s a shared shower and toilet on the grounds, as well as the hotel restaurant, the main building with reception, and 2 buildings with rooms. There are no fans on the terrace by the room, and because of the hotel’s layout and the fence around it, there’s practically no breeze, even in windy weather, so it’s very stuffy. A second chair on the terrace was also a bit lacking; we had to bring a chair out from the room.
Service. The room was cleaned every day, and the towels were changed almost every day too (there were a few days when they forgot). The bed linen was changed 3 times in 10 days. The room was cleaned well, and they swept out all the sand we’d tracked in during the day. They also cleaned the terrace by the room.
The hotel owners told us that if we needed an early or late breakfast, we should let them know in advance and everything would be ready. So one day we arranged through Dasha for breakfast to be served at 7:20–7:30, but on the day we saw no breakfast and only got coffee at 7:50, drank it quickly and left for an excursion. The second time we tried to arrange directly with the local waiter/bartender for him to bring just tea/coffee without food at 7:30 — with the same result: at 7:50 we only got coffee. At breakfast everything is very slow. To get your full breakfast, it’s quite normal to sit and wait for an hour. The waiter/bartender can’t cope with the number of people; he needs a helper at breakfast time. Or at least there could be a table where guests can pour their own tea/coffee instead of waiting half an hour for it. A table is set for 4 people, but for tea/coffee they bring a glass with 1 spoon and 4–5 sachets of sugar. The cutlery isn’t always clean, especially those very tea/coffee spoons. In the last days our shower head broke (it started leaking); everyone reacted very quickly, and a brand-new shower head was installed.
Another small drawback of the waiter/bartender: he brings change every other time. On the first day we had a beer and a cola (7,000 shillings) and got no change from 10,000 shillings; on the second day he brought everything; on the third day he didn’t bring change from 10,000 shillings for a beer. In short, he brings change depending on his mood.
Location. The hotel is on the second line; the nearest beach is 200–300 metres away. Next to it, as I wrote, is a school. A little further on the shops begin: there are 3 “super” markets, like our small shops, a taxi stand and 3 liquor shops. And there are restaurants and cafés everywhere, which I’ll write about in another article. Point on the map.
Other perks of Hotel Nungwi. At night a Maasai guard comes onto the grounds to guard the property. At reception there’s a large bottle of purified water that you can pour into your own container or drink right there from disposable cups. If you buy fruit at the market, you can give it to the waiter at the hotel and they’ll cut it up beautifully.
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